So, suppose if you summon a bow or a sword using conjuration.

Does this mean that you would need marksmen or blade proficiency to use this bound weapon, or does the game mechanic use the conjuration skill?

I browsed the wiki pages but could not find any clear cut information.

Thanks!

Yeah that's what I thought, thanks. So what's the use case for bound weapons? Like if you are a battlemage?
Basically you use weapons, rather than destruction, to do damage with conjuration as support?

They can also be useful for (nearly) pure warriors to give them something to spend their Magicka on. Especially since it means that they don't need to waste carry capacity on a heavy weapon.

Bound weapons have a weapon type and base stats like damage and health, which are being modified by the player's stats. For example, a bound dagger is a one-handed blade and has a base damage of 13, while a bound sword is a two-handed blade with a base damage of 29. Depending on, for example, your player's blade skill, these values are modified.
For details regarding bound weapon stats and player skills, please read the respective section in uesp.net.
You have to figure out yourself if it makes sense to use a bound weapon rather than your normal weapon, or rather than offensive spells (or whatever other things yu might do). Or to simply conjure it to train your conjuration skill, without intending to use the bound weapon (which is relatively easy in Oblivion because mana regenerates fast - unless you play Atronach, or use a mod to slow down mana regeneration).

Does someone know (I've never tried it myself) what happens when you conjure a bound sword, and then a bound shield? By rights, the conjured sword (2-handed) should disappear when the bound shield is conjured. Is this how it works?
There is also an interesting comparison in uesp.net between the spells Bound Shield and Shield (see Bound Armour section).

I don't remember if you can actually cast a bound weapon before the first instance wears off; if that's the case, then you'll need to use a summon spell instead.

If you *are* playing Atronach, it's still not hard to train Conjuration, as there are a couple ways to recover your mana:
* Drink custom Restore Magicka potions. These potions are easy to make and practical (considerably more practical than in Morrowind). Drink one, and for a while your Magicka will regenerate. (For example, with 75 Alchemy, 50 Luck, and novice alchemy equipment, one potion will last 31 seconds according to a calculator I found online.) This potion alone is enough of a reason to boost your Alchemy if you're playing with the Atronach birthsign.
* Summon a spellcasting monster, attack it until it turns hostile, then absorb the spells it throws at you. This allows you to regain Magicka without using any items, while also giving you some Conjuration experience. There's also the option of soul trapping your summons, allowing you to recharge your magic items and enchant your own.

Another method that can help you raise the skill is to enchant items with Fortify Conjuration effects to raise your effective Conjuration, preferably to 100, in order to reduce the cost. (You'll still need practice to get access to the stronger spells, however.)

Also worth noting that Conjuration increases faster than any of the other magic skills. (Restoration, on the other hand, increases more slowly, probably to balance how many spell effects it was given. Maybe they should have given some of the Restoration effects to other schools and made Restoration easier to raise to compensate?)

Worth noting that you don't have to worry about durability with bound weapons; it is extremely unlikely that a bound weapon will break before its duration wears off, and even if it somehow does break, you can just summon another one later. No need to worry about having to repair your weapons.

With bound weapons and bound or no armor, you can eliminate the need to worry about durability entirely.

Bound weapons have 0 weight; this means that fatigue costs will be considerably lower than if you were using an actual heavy daedric weapon of that type. Also, note that the sword you get is actually stronger than a standard daedric claymore. On the other hand, you can't normally enchant such items, so you have to choose between enchantment or no weight/durability.

(Incidentally, if you do decide to repair a bound weapon, it loses its special "bound" nature. If you then drop or enchant the weapon before the spell wears off (something you can't do without repairing it first), you get a permanent 0 weight weapon.) Some enemies can absorb or reflect the spells you cast on them, so sometimes spells aren't the answer.

(If you don't want to raise your weapon skill for this niche situation, try adding a fortify skill effect to the bound weapon spell.)

... and it keeps its other properties (damage, health, ...)? Would this be a way to get yourself a full set of weapons and armour? I wonder if this is intentional.

Regarding casting a second Bound spell before the first one wears off, I think I remember (but am not certain) that Bound spells don't stack, with other words, the bound object of the first spell disappears) when you cast the second one - which would answer my earlier question.

It is a way to get a full set of bound weapons and armor. They do keep their damage and health (but be aware that their health doesn't regerenate).

It's also a great way to get a bunch of zero weight weapons that you can enchant, allowing you access to a wide variety of enchanted weapons without having to worry about weight, particularly since late game weapons get heavy and early game weapons seem to disappear from shop inventories as you reach higher levels.

Also, keep in mind the skill requirements for using spells (particularly the bound claymore), and that you still need to acquire the spell effect in question.

One interesting point: In Morrowind, bound weapons have normal durability, and I believe that if one were to break, bad things could happen. (I know that repairing such an item could result in an item permanently stuck in you inventory.) It seems the developers of Oblivion *really* didn't want that to happen, so such weapons were given such high durability values that it would be extremely unlikely for one to break (in other words, breaking such an item is likely impossible without some sort of exploit combined with the player behaving in a highly unusual manner).

Edit: I suspect that this behavior is not intended.

Thanks.
Oblivion is the first TES game where I used Bound Spells at all, mainly to train conjuration (one of my favourite roles is to travel around and let my conjured companion protect me - works most of the time, except when a bunch of trolls chase you simultaneously, which you can't easily distract from yourself).

Bound weapons are poor quality.

Huh? What do you mean?

Bound weapons can actually be quite good in Morrowind. Just start a new character with Axe and Conjuration as major skills, go to Balmora, and pick up a Bound Axe spell. You now have a weapon that's really strong at this early stage in the game, and still likely viable for a long time. (Just remember to hold down the button for a bit when attacking, so that you get 80 damage rather than 1 if your attack hits.)

They asked about Oblivion specifically.

... but she answered my implicit question. Thanks, dtgreene!